Unused Rise Of The Silver Surfer Storyboards Display Doom's Castle, Fantasti-Car, and More

The only thing worse than seeing a failed comic book movie is knowing how much better that film could have been.

This latest exercise in disappointment comes from Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer--and an unused version of it that will never see the light of day. Production art blog Film Sketchr tracked down one of Surfer's storyboard artists, Darrin Denlinger and received a ton of unused storyboard pieces that hint at an alternate finale, unused concepts, and plenty of missed opportunities. Denlinger, it should be noted, has also drawn storyboards for Iron Man 3, The Avengers, and Captain America: The First Avenger.

The most notable sketch from Denlinger's collection is a piece from Dr. Doom's castle. The sketch hints at a far more dramatic showdown between the Silver Surfer, The Fantastic Four, and Dr. Doom, and the bitter brawl between rivals Doom and Reed Richards that audiences never received.

Denlinger also showed off unused scenes featuring the Fantasti-Car, which the artist felt was sadly underutilized in the film's merchandising and marketing campaign. Seeing as how the film played out like one big toy commercial, that really is a tragedy.

Perhaps the greatest sacrifice, however, were the fairly routine Fantastic Four rescue missions that never made it into the film. While technically inconsequential, these scenes would have been a great opportunity for an uninhibited display of the Four's powers.

Check out Film Sketchr for all of Denlinger's storyboard art, which the blog promises to post tomorrow.